"There is an educational and spiritual crisis of gargantuan proportions in public education."

GHOULS 2000
When deprived of proper tools,
Teachers turn out proper fools --
And not a smidgeon
Of religion
Is allowed in public schools.

"The typical Christian family in America's heartland has been suffering for years because the larger Church and her leaders have been committed to the proposition that the government school system is an acceptable alternative for the education and nurture of Christian children," says Ray Moore, president of Exodus Mandate, an organization warning Christian parents of the dangers of government-run schools. "This proposition is no longer acceptable," Moore contends, "and, in fact, has never been acceptable. It has only become apparent in recent decades as the malaise and failure of government education have become so catastrophic. It is only now," he notes, "that the larger Christian community seems willing to take a second and harder look at the various Christian education options."

Moore argues that "Bible-based Christian education is the only acceptable alternative for the Christian community." He believes that "the time has come for a coordinated commitment by the national Christian leadership, pastors, and the larger Christian community to support an effort to withdraw Christian children from the government school system and place them in existing Christian schools and Christian homeschools." Moore foresees that "Christian children will not be able to coexist within the government school system as they have done before. Just as the conditions in Egypt drastically changed and turned against the people of God when a Pharaoh arose 'who did not know Joseph,' so the current government school system has radically turned against Christian children, beliefs, and even teachers."

Christians believe that "children belong to the Lord and are a stewardship to the parents not the state," Moore emphasizes. "Nowhere in Scripture does a reference exist in which God delegates to the state the authority to educate children. It was the universal custom in ancient Israel and the Church for two millennia that families be responsible for the education of youth with assistance from the synagogue or the church," he observes. "There are no examples of government education for the people of God, as the ideal pattern, in the Bible. This was also the exclusive pattern in American history in the early days when all education had a strong Christian flavor."

Moore considers it "unwise to divorce the lordship of Christ and the superintendency of the Holy Scriptures from any area of knowledge and learning, especially in the education of our youth; yet, America has built a whole school system upon this premise." He maintains that all education "has a religious character as it is inescapably based upon views, articulated or not, related to the nature of God, man, and the world. Neutrality in education is impossible," Moore insists. "It is time for a new Exodus and a new cry from the people of God to 'let my children go.'"